Our next illustration is another specimen of antique design and ornamentation.
Ancient Brass Watch-case with lid protecting Dial.
In 1676 Barlow, a London clockmaker, invented some mechanism whereby a person at night might ascertain, in the dark, the hour last struck, by pulling a certain part of it, and this contrivance gave the name of repeater to all time-pieces in which it was used. For this invention Barlow tried to obtain a patent, but he was opposed by Daniel Quare and the Clockmakers' Company, who said that Quare was the original inventor. The question was tried by James II., and the decision given in favour of Quare. The following memorandum was entered upon the books of the Company with reference thereto. '1688, Sep. 29.—Be it remembered that in pursuance of the order of the Court of the 8th day of February, 1687-8, and according to the order of the Court of the 5th March, 1687-8, the patent endeavoured to be obtained by one Mr Edward Barlow, a priest, and to be granted to him by the king's majesty for his sole making and managing of all pulling repeating pocket-clocks and watches, he pretending to be the true and first inventor of that art and invention, was by diligence and endeavour of the Master, Wardens, and Assistants of this Company, with great charge and expense, which was borne by and out of the stock of the Company, very successfully prevented, and upon the 2nd March, 1687-8, ordered by the king in Council not to be granted.'
In 1695 Tompion invented the cylinder escapement with horizontal wheel, but this was not brought into general use until some time after, when it was much modified. It was, however, a very valuable invention, and exercised considerable influence upon the shape of subsequent watches, inasmuch as it dispensed with the vertical crown wheel, and permitted them to be made more flat and therefore more conveniently portable.
We now come to the time when the use of jewels was first invented and applied; and as these, by being so hard and uninfluenced by friction as to allow the pivots to play without wearing away,—as metal would do by constant action,—afterwards gained for the English peculiar fame as manufacturers of watches, we shall be excused for enlarging upon this point. About the year 1700 Nicolas Facio, a native of Geneva, having invented the use of jewels in watches, and failed in his attempt to persuade the Parisian watch-makers into the adoption of his notions, came to London. In May, 1705, he and two other watch-makers, Peter Debaufree and Jacob Debaufree, obtained a patent for his invention to extend over fourteen years. In December, 1705, he petitioned, as we shall presently see, to be granted a more extended term, and then the Clockmakers' Company opposed the application upon the ground of the invention not being a novel one, and in proof of their statement produced the watch, of which we give an illustration, as made by Ignatius Huggeford, a member of their own Company, some time before the application of the pendulum-spring. As this watch had a large amethyst mounted upon the cock or pivot of the balance-wheel, the Committee of the House of Commons were induced to decide against Facio's petition and to throw out his Bill.
Ignatius Huggeford's Original Jewelled Watch.
This watch has since then obtained an extensive historical reputation, and it is preserved in the archives of the Clockmakers' Company as one of their most valuable treasures, for it is the earliest known English jewelled watch, and is the identical instrument produced before the House of Commons Committee, as evidence to upset, and which did upset, poor Facio's claim for an extension of patent. Alas, for ancient reputations, it has been but recently discovered that Huggeford's watch was but a fraud, and that the jewel on the cock which deceived the Parliamentary Committee into supposing that Ignatius Huggeford, an Englishman, had applied jewels to watches long before Facio had been heard of, has nothing to do with the working of the watch. The jewel has been merely stuck on, just in the place where a jewel should be; but as it is only fixed to the surface of the brass and no pivot plays in the jewel, it may be averred that the amethyst has no more to do with the movement of the watch than the silver ornaments on the watch-case. It is clear by the words in Facio's petition that his application of jewelling to watches was not merely done with the idea of ornamenting them,—in that there would have been no novelty,—and it seems probable that the amethyst would have been placed upon the face of the watch if the object of inserting it anywhere had simply been ornamentation; to speak plainly, none other than a fraudulent purpose could be served by its being placed where it is. It is, we fear, not impossible that the jewel was placed there at the instance of some of the members of the Clockmakers' Company, who, being perhaps jealous of the foreign invention, and fearful of its effects upon their own private trade, were still unable to prevent the grant of a patent, in May, 1703, for fourteen years to the inventor. But by December of that year, when application was made for the extension of the patent, they had had time to consider affairs and to prepare their opposition. We may believe this watch to have been Ignatius Huggeford's, and to have been all that it was sworn to be by the members of that Company, but, when we remark that neither is any mention whatever made by them, nor, as far as it appears, any question asked of them before the Parliamentary Committee as to the jewel being upon the cock during the whole of the time of its being in their possession, we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that the jewel was placed upon Huggeford's old watch—the date of which could be shown—at the order of some of the members of the Clockmakers' Company with the purpose of defeating the patent, and that the Committee of the House of Commons were not as careful as they ought to have been in inspecting the jewel, for if they had, they must have seen the want of connexion between the amethyst and the pivot, which, it was pretended, was working in it. The probability is that at this time our English watch-makers scarcely knew how to apply a jewel, or otherwise they would have inserted the pivot in a proper manner. The story is anyhow a very extraordinary one, for, supposing the Clockmakers' Company to be innocent of conspiracy on the subject, it must have been a miraculously curious whim which possessed old Huggeford to insert a jewel as an ornament in a place where it would not be seen, and still more wonderful that it should, sham as it was, be placed exactly where it should suit the purpose of after-litigation. Of course there can be no imputation arising out of this incident to affect the members of the Clockmakers' Company of the present time, for they are no more answerable for what was done above a century and a half ago than the Parliament of to-day is to be blamed for allowing the execution of Charles I., or for enacting the laws which led to the loss of our American colonies.
After the invention of jewels for watches came a still more important discovery.